Bird watching

We took a break from ocean week today to go bird watching!

We've made binoculars at our house before and after Ox at that pair 

Ox and Evin

we made a second (less fancy) pair at the children's museum!  

They're really simple, just what I like!  

Here's what you'll need

2 toilet paper tubes

string or pipe cleaners

glue or brads

decoration materials (tissue paper, stickers, construction paper, rhinestones, etc)

1. Glue or use brads to fasten the tp tubes together (let dry if needed)

2. Decorate!!!!!

3. Tie on your string or pipe cleaners so you have a neck strap

4. Safari, bird watch, search for planes and helicopters, spy on your neighbors!

                               

Nap Time

As I was busy today during Evin's nap I thought I would start a new section of the blog! 

Need help naming it......  

Auntie Lisa suggested "While he was sleeping...."

I'm drawing a blank.....I'd love to here any ideas!

Dedicated to what I can accomplish during nap time!  

So today......Evin began his nap in the car on the way home from the grocery store.  First thing accomplished.....

DRIVE HOME!  

It's a lovely day outside today so we let the cool breeze blow thru the car as I completed my second nap time accomplishment......

UNLOADING THE GROCERIES!

I met Nicole on the stairs and she seemed fairly excited to see Evin and a little disappointed when I told her to turn around and get downstairs she wasn't going to be waking him up when I made the transfer.  Next accomplishment.....

SUCCESSFUL SLEEPING TRANSFER TO CRIB (and coat removal)!

I put all the groceries away and then decided to start on our ocean week aquariums.  So I boiled the water while I put away most of the groceries and then mixed up the jello and poured it in to the "tanks" and put them in to the fridge.....

BEGIN AQUARIUM SNACK PROJECT!

Before we left to run errands I found an awesome recipe....as long as they tasted good I would be in business....AMAZING....... They have three ingredients

2 bananas

1 cup of quick oats (maybe more if your bananas are bigger

1 handful of your favorite ingredient (I chose peanut butter chips)

Cook for about 15 minutes on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees

Delicious......

MAKE 3 INGREDIENT COOKIES!

As the cookies were were baking I took care of the bills......

PAY THE BILLS

I also got this blog posted and lastly I had a few minutes to finish the latest episode of Gypsy Sisters.  Yay!  Now I have to wake Evin up....more than an hour and a half nap and I'll be up all night!

E Week Distractions

This theme week had a lot of distractions......

First of all I made Mt. Dew cupcakes......for those of you who don't know I LOVE Mt. Dew, it's the breakfast of champions!  

There was even Mt. Dew buttercream frosting....one of the girls at work had to ask if the icing had food coloring in it or not......for the record, YES!  

If you love lemony, lime, sugar amazingness, here's the recipe!

Mountain Dew Cupcakes

1 cup butter (2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup Mountain Dew
1/4 cup of lemon and lime juice (juice from 1 lemon and 1 lime)
zest from 1 lemon and 2 limes (separate into 2 piles, one for buttercream)
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Beat butter on medium for 30 seconds.
2. Add sugar and lemon, lime zest. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time, Scrape sides of bowl in between additions
4. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add to mixer bowl. Turn on low for 5 seconds.
5. Add the Mountain Dew, lemon/lime juice, and lemon extract . Mix to combine.
5. Scoop into cupcake papers about two-thirds full.
6. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Mountain Dew Buttercream

1 cup butter (2 sticks)
4-5 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons Mountain Dew
Juices from half of 1 lemon and half of 1 lime.
Lemon and lime zest (rest of zest from cupcake recipe. Or zest from half of 1 lemon and 1 whole lime)
1 teaspoon lemon extract
neon green food coloring (yellow and blue if you dont have green)

1. Sift powdered sugar into a bowl or onto parchment
2. Beat butter at medium-high speed until creamy
3. Add half of the sugar, turn mixer on low for 5 seconds.
4. Add the Mountain Dew, zest, and lemon extract . Beat until combined.
5. Add food coloring to the desired color.
6. Gradually add remaining sugar until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like.

Last Thrusday it was yard work day.  The guys building our fence cleared out a lot of branches and since the dump isn't free....we wanted to burn it.....problem....no fire pit.....solution: stack old bricks and pavers in whatever shape I can and burn some of this stuff!

Turned out to be a very nice evening eating pizza and drinking beer around the fire!

Also the holes for the fence on both sides of the yard are mostly dug out!

Evin was pretty good firewood stacker.  

Disclaimer:  According to dad you should not stack firewood against your house.....invites termites and other buggys to live there.....soon worker bee Evin will be moving it all back.  

Project #2: Tiling Nicole's bathroom downstairs.....shout out to whoever carpeted it, "WHY WOULD YOU COVER UP THIS AWESOME CARPET!"  shout out to whoever carpeted it before that, "WHY WOULD YOU CARPET A BATHROOM!!!!"  

Nicole had to think long and hard about getting rid of this carpet, but in the end......

The carpet lost.  

Evin did some work on the hammer.

I passed on some knowledge handed down from Mitch Gray, to Phil Schmidt, to me, and now the torch will live on in Nicole.....she even proved she know how to take the proper remodeling pictures.  

First two pieces in......

Everything else out...

Thinset check. 

Lastly grout.....and if Nicole ever cleans up and gets it perfect in there we'll have an all finished picture.  

Whew............

E Week

Since Thursday was spent tiling and working in the backyard, we got a bit of late start on eye week.

On Friday we played with eyeballs! 

We sorted them.

Threw them all over the living room.

Glued them on to the letter E..... and later peeled them all off too.  

We also added eyeballs to some emotion faces. 

It was eyeballs EVERYWHERE!  And might be for weeks!

We even took an eye ball bath, which was pretty fun since then stuck to his arms and belly and legs! 

We scooped them up in to cups, poured them out, it was a good hour of fun!

On Saturday I worked late but we got a great picture from Great Grandma Peg Leg!  She makes a great pirate!  I only hope to be as cool as her when I'm recovering from a knee replacement!

Sunday night and Tuesday night we had a glow in the dark egg hunt!

Since his pirate stuff is still scattered all throughout the house, we hid eggs in the treasure chest.  

He gathered them up and put them in a basket!  This is like his all time favorite activity aside from the safari hunt.  

I found these awesome lights at Michaels....or maybe Hobby Lobby in the floral section, you twist them tight to turn them on a un twist them to turn them off, we've used them for almost a year now!

Tuesday we worked on this shapes elephant....He was very excited when he completed it!  

We also used koolaid to paint hard boiled eggs.....it was a lot of fun until we dumped the blue on to the carpet......its still blue and probably will be until we replace the carpet.

The koolaid sort of wiped right off the egg so aunt Nicole made some E's on our eggs!

And that's it.....see E week distractions for why this week was so weak.  :)

Here's the links to all my grand plans I didn't complete!  

Activity List

Dirty E or Earth Day E

E Sensory Bin